GENE AUTRY and the THIEF RIVER OUTLAWS (1944)

There were a number of Gene Autry hardcover novels published by Whitman throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but none were more fascinating than Gene Autry and the Thief River Outlaws. Published in 1944, the 249-page novel was written by Bob Hamilton, a pseudonym for Fran Striker -- the same man responsible for the creation of The Lone Ranger. (Hamilton was Striker's middle name, incidentally.)

The novel was published twice, each with a different dust jacket. For collectors who enjoy reading these children's novels, it comes as no surprise that the dust jackets (more fragile than the books) are worth more than the hardcover books. You can purchase the hardcover novel for $7 easily, but with the dust jacket you can expect to pay at least $20. This should give you an idea of what is a good deal if the book comes with a dust jacket in beautiful condition.

While the first page of the novel claims this to be an original novel, Striker borrowed the premise from the novel that appeared in the 1937 Lone Ranger pulp magazine, "Heritage of the Plains." In that novel, Bart Hempstead, falsely mistaken of being the notorious Trig Marsden, is released after serving two weeks in jail. His imprisonment had been by design. Vince Fenton was attempting to prevent Hempstead from completing the construction on a bridge for which Hempstead was the designer. Fenton worked for an opposing company competing for a railroad bound west. Trig Marsden went under the alias of Pete Morgan and was hired by Fenton to prevent the completion of the bridge. The Lone Ranger would ultimately find himself framed for an attempted act of sabotage. The same story would later be recycled for use in the 1942 Better Little Book, The Lone Ranger and the Great Western Span. 

For the Gene Autry novel of 1944, Jim Farnsworth works for Old Tennessee to complete the construction of the bridge over Thief River Canyon. Gene Autry was warned by Trig Marsden to leave the territory, but our hero proves he is determined to stay and prevent bloodshed and acts of sabotage. Interestingly, Fran Striker chose to borrow elements from Lone Ranger radio plots to make up the meat and potatoes of this western epic, beyond the premise from his 1937 novel. The final scene in the novel, whereupon Gene Autry forces T.J. Hind to remain on board the train that was bound to cross the completed bridge, knowing Hind ordered his men to sabotage the bridge and thus gave away his guilt when he wanted to escape the train, was borrowed from the radio broadcast of December 26, 1934. On The Lone Ranger incarnation, the masked man forced Manuel to cross a bridge -- and like Hind, Manuel did not know that the act of sabotage was fixed soon after the crime was committed.

Fran Striker would later use his "Bob Hamilton" pseudonym once more for Gene Autry and the Redwood Pirates, recycling the story arc for a three-part Lone Ranger radio adventure, broadcast on December 13, 15 and 17, 1943. The Gene Autry novel would later be revised again for Tom Quest and the Mystery of the Timber Giant in 1955, as part of a series of Tom Quest adventures written by Fran Striker.